Open for discussion. I suppose.

Discussion, but not ripping apart.
I am torn between the odd feeling of wanting to explain and the stronger feelings of mind your own damn business, however, acknowledging that I have used this very blog to sound out my frustrations in the past at finding myself at home all day, every day with H, I suppose in a way I have left it open for people ( and I suspect that Trace isn't the only one thinking it, in fact after her last comment caused more behind the scenes and revelations that I can be bothered to go into and the awkward cooling for a while of one friendship and the complete blowing apart of another already waning one, I know she isn't)here goes, an explaination into my living arrangement for the sake of other people. Who leave comments like this


Humm, it doesn't take a high IQ to figure out why most of the world has things to do on the weekend. Maybe if you were not home 24 hours a day, 7 days a week then the weekend would mean more to you.
and this....

"It is not that you are a stay at home mom that I have a hard time understanding, it that your husband is a stay at home dad too. While you mention that money is so tight and that you stress about it so much, but there is no wage earner in your household except for your older son. A (meaning one) stay at home parent is a very noble profession...two is just plain irresponsible."

Actually, to be fair, both these commenst were by the same person and so was the one that I deleted because it made me SO mad I couldn't stand to have it there, so maybe I could just tell myself that it's just this one person ( who I wouldn't know if she stood up in my soup) and who, if we're honest matters not to me and makes no difference in my life apart from invoking an uneasy and somewhat irritating, certainly unwelcome and unneeded shaking of the smidgen of peace of mind I might have. This is for you.

I married H nearly 6 years ago and moved to the states , I left a home that was very nice, filled with very nice things paid for by me.....just me. I was a stay at home parent to 3 children all of differing special needs and at the same time I was a respite carer for severly disabled children, we lived on benefits and also the money from the respite care. Because my children had special needs it was deemed more sensible and economical for ME to be at home looking after them, in order to feel that I was teaching them not only the fact that I was there for them and that despite the horrific things they had and were dealing with they too could always find things to do and hold their heads up high, I looked after many sick children as well as my own.
I met and married H and we moved, lock, stock and barrel to the states, I will say that apart from the general experience and the fact that I married a man who has many great qualities, the experience of living in the country we hear endlessly is the greatest, the Land of the free and the best in the world, I found the whole deal a bloody nightmare.
I left everything I had built up and moved to crapola.
H is a salesman by choice and although a good one was working for commission only and apart from a fantastic spell of success, which was great while it lasted, we found that there was no way he was able to support us there. We lived with his dad for a while ( much longer that I would ever have chosen ) and to cut along story short, after my 2 eldest boys had been back in England for nearly 2 years and missing them so much it hurt I couldn't stand it anymore.
So, I came home, with my children and was almost 5 months pregnant with Eli...no idea how or even, if, H would ever get over to join us, even that , the prospect of leaving him behind and being a single mother again was better to me than living in the states, I hated it, loved my husband, the sunshine and my father in law, but the rest was hell for me.
So, here I was, back home, really at home, with family and friends and everything that means anything to me where it should be, but no husband.
Miracles DO happen and it was only 5 months til he joined us..he arrived the day before I went into hospital to have Elijah.
He settled in, we had Eli, and he looked for work, hooray, success he got a great job working for British Gas, everything was set and he had the date for his induction course, in Wales. January 27th. Excitement all 'round.
Three days before he was due to go on the course he had a call saying that they were putting his induction course back 2 weeks because they were still recruiting and were hoping to send more people at the same time, no worries they were looking forward to working with him as much as he was looking forward to working for them.
January 27th, the date he should have gone to Wales to train, he was weird all day, more than bad tempered he was downright evil. I kind of put up with it and hoped he would get over it but as the day went on he got more and more out of control and at 7 o'clock in the evening he exploded, real rage just so out of the blue, no real reason but he lost it until I made it clear that no-one was prepared to put up with this so he should get away and stay away until he was ready to be reasonable and explin what the hell was the matter.
15 minutes later he came down and came right up to me and whispered " I feel bad" I was about to say " so you should" when I looked at his face and knew that what he meant was, he felt ill, he was totally grey ( and normally he has dark olive skin) his face and head were pouring sweat and he was fumbling and panicking around. I told him to sit down and calm down but he kept flapping about and was trying to get outside.
When he managed to get out he vomited and it was like a scene from the exorcist.....he looked as if he had been in a shower, the sweat was pouring from him and he was gasping and saying he couldn't get his breath. After calling for an ambulance he sat still and looked a bit better but it was clear that he was far from well.
He was having a heart attack, 44 years old, no previous trouble, great colesterol levels, perfect blood pressure and not over weight....WHAM heart attack. 5 days in hospital with drips and drugs and fear, then home.
So here he is, my husband, young ( in this case, if I was talking about leather pants and nightclubs he would be up there with Methusula but for this, he is young!!) in a foreign country, never been ill before and struck down with what could have been a fatal condition. How scarey must that have been? It was terrifying for me ( and still is, everytime he sweats when he is working outside I am waiting for him to keel over again!)
So, the job was a no-go. He is now on so many medications I'm amazed he doesn't rattle, he is actually pretty fit and had he been working in a job that was compatible with the life he now has to lead he could have gone right back to it, however, he wasn't and he can't. How many English employers do you know that will jump at the chance to employ a now 46 year old American with a bad heart? Especially in the line of work that he has always done which is sales, knocking on doors and walking neighbourhoods?
Why don't I go to work then? Well, how possible would it be for my husband to look after these 3 under 5's, get them to all the various appointments, schools, get to his doctors appts, taking various children with him? Impossible, he is capable of many things but not everything. I hate to make myself sound like superwoman but in all honesty there are times when I am pretty damn near!
Add to that ( and here's where it gets uncomfortable for me but lets get it all out in the open and to hell with it all) the fact that because in my adult life I have dealt with some pretty hair-raising events, one after the other, I am a nervous and terrified wreck. I am afraid of nearly everything.
In 16 years I have hadmy 1st husband walk out, 2 days after major surgery, leaving me with 3 babies aged 10 weeks, nearly 2 and nearly 4. And a hole the size of a fist left open in my stomach. Great timing arsehole.
My 2 sons were snatched by a pedophile and so hideously abused it took me 4 years to get them anywhere near normal. Me, no-one else. I listened to 4 years of revelations from these children that would make any mothers heart bleed and break and split with pain. Every filthy, miserable, terrifying detail told to Me by these little boys mouths, imagine what you will, I probably heard it from my children and had to keep a calm face, not cry, not panic, not scream, not run away. I had to deal with it, again and again and again and again until those little boys had purged themselves of every terrifying and damaging detail and everything was in MY head, where it will stay until the day I die. But if it is mine and not theirs then Thank God and say Amen.
Just as they were beginning to recover, my little girl, sweet blond haired Sophie who was so clever, so funny and so quick it was a joy to watch her, began to fit. Up to 30 times a day she would glaze over and disappear into who knows what place, everytime she came back a bit more of her had been lost until I was left with this little ball of screaming energy, she would hang out of upstairs windows, run into the road, punch, kick, spit, swear her brain being damaged by whatever was going on in there and bit by bit she wore us all down. Some meds worked, others made it worse, until she outgrew the epilepsy when she was 9. Damage was done and although she is feisty and appears to be over the epilepsy the fight is still there and she has many problems still to over come.
4 years in the states, where I learned there is no place like home. I'm still not able to say outloud what happened over there but suffice to say it wasn't much fun, I didn't see whatever it is that has us hearing til we could puke, how it is the greatest country in the world and I'll be damned if I can remember anything that I found remotely worth staying for. So I didn't.
Since I came back H has had his heart attack and what came with that is a legacy of fear, what else can happen? Oh, what else can happen is we can watch our little boy disappear into himself. What can the matter be? Oh yes, that's right, Autism this time. that's a new one but we can do it. Together. Between us we do it, one of here, keeping the homefires burning, tidying, washing, cooking and feeling useful and having a purpose and not thinking about being on the scrap heap at 46, the other, running about like a blue-arsed fly, keeping endless doctor's appointments and school runs and seeing special needs teachers, dealing with teenagers and landlords, paying bills, trying to remember to breathe and not pass out because being outside is scarey and talking to people hurts.
He keeps me sane, he lets me sleep when I need to because I am awake most nights, all night, because I am so sad all the time and so frightened about what is going to come my way next.
I keep him safe and tell him how much he helps me .
My 2nd son works, good boy, he earns good money, lucky boy- and he pays me £30 a week. Whoppy-do. ever seen how much a 18 year old boy who is 6' 5" tall can eat? ever seen how much laundry a teenager can make? Ever seen a phone bill run up by a teenager who calls all his friends cell phones ( and yes, wicked me I make him pay for every one! And the pay per view movies he watches !) He earns money because I have taught him his whole life that if he wants things he has to decide what it is he wants and then go out and do something about it. On my birthday, he gave me money to go out with a friend, kind boy. He even buys trendy designer clothes for his baby brothers because he thinks it's cute. Generous boy.
My oldest son, who is 20 works hard too, he earns good money and he learned the same lessons, from me.
I am not sitting here, with my feet on a table and my arse on a pillow waiting for handouts.
In the past 2 months both H and I have been to the Job center and spoken with the people who deal with benefits and such, we have both asked about what we can do to change things and guess what we were both told?
We were told that because they know every detail of our lives, because we have answered every question, been to every doctors appointment, attended every interview, proven what we are telling them is true, because it IS their business. They see, they believe and they know that the only way we can keep this whole show on the road is for me to be here for him and him for me and both of us for the children. See? That's why we are both here, because we have to be and because THIS country cares enough to take time and see what people really need and go out to try and provide it.
We don't have a day's worry about health care, H had his heart attack and all we had to worry about was whether he would get better.Not how we would pay for it. Isaac has all the help he can ever need and never a second's worry about how much it will cost.
We have proven to the people that matter that we deserve what we are given.
H does voluntary work, he is a board member for a political party here and works hard for them, he is on the board of governors at the boys school. He helps anyone that may need his help and I have never, ever seen him just sit around and do nothing. I have never seen him play a video game, he plays with his kids, he makes computer programmes with dinosaurs in and the alphabet so his boys can learn and have fun at the same time. He plants things and shows them how they grow and how we can eat things that we grow ourselves. We don't drink, at all, we don't smoke, we haven't been out for a meal in forever ( apart from a meal Jordan cooked at his work on H's birthday while Sophie babysat, clever boy, kind girl.)
If I grizzle sometimes about not having much money, shoot me! This blog is FOR me to moan, to rage, vent, swear, weep...because in real life, I don't. I smile, I say I'm fine, I play with my children and teach them the good things in life. When everyone goes to bed, I sit up and I worry about whether I am doing it all OK, I cry in case anything else every happens to my children, or my husband, or me. I dig my fingers until they bleed when I worry about things that haven't happened but might, or remember things that have happened and were too sad or painful and hope they never ever happen again.
What I don't do is worry about not going out to work. I would worry if I DID go to work , if I left these children in the care of anyone but me I would be sick with worry. I don't feel a single bit of remorse or guilt because we receive benefits because I know we are entitled to them and there is no choice that would work and still be OK for this family.
I have sat opposite the very people whose job it is to weed out the benefit frauds, they have even been to my HOME and they look me in the face and tell me that I mustn't give it a second thought because as far as they are concerned this family is what the benefits are about, if they say that do you think for one second it matter who else should think we are sponging or being ridiculous? If we know that what we do is the only thing we can do with things as they are, why would we listen to anyone who would scoff and look down on us?
So, there, it's done, I imagine there will be those that tut and mutter about how terrible I am...carry on. There will be those who say I am saying one thing and doing another by saying I don't care what you think and then write an explanation. So be it.
I do know that the people that matter will be glad, that for us, there is help, that we ARE able to live in a way that helps us deal with what life has thrown at us without the added terror of how to keep a roof over our heads and medicines in the cabinet. I know many people are even envious that it is possible to live in a place where the needy matter, where the small people are remembered and deemed as important as the wealthy with their big SUVs and swanky medical insurance. Ahhh we're home in Great Britain...couldn't have named it better myself.